They walk out holding hands, ready to dance wildly, a blaze of glory. Emily feels the moment when Cook sees Effy with Freddie, kissing, reunited in every sense. His whole body tenses and he sucks in a breath, sharply, like he's just plunged into the too cold water of their lake.
She tightens her grip on his hand. It's simultaneously not enough and too much. She's an anchor, a tether, the safety on a rifle. She's the locked door, all that stands between Cook and chaos. If she lets go, he'll go off like a firework. She can feel it. He's coiled, ready to erupt.
Emily is scared. It's responsibility, heavy on her shoulders. His hand in hers, that's all this is, or all it was. "Cook." She says. He can't hear her, over the noise of the people and the party, or the roaring of blood pounding in his head, adrenaline.
Her arm's bent at the elbow. She's turned her head back to watch him, but her body's facing away, because she came out to dance and she wasn't expecting the situation that she's found herself in instead. She can't make herself move; frightened the movement of her turning round will be all it takes to upset the balance, to lose Cook.
In her head, she's seeing the locked door, the bolts and padlocks, the metal bars. In her head, there's a prison cell and she's all that's keeping Cook out of it. Everyone else is too fucking useless; too drunk, too scared, too selfish. She's scared too. She needs some fucking help with this. They're supposed to be his friends.
"Cook." She says again. She's shaking, trembling. She thinks her teeth might start to chatter. Time's gone screwy, fluid; it feels like forever and no time at all, a freeze frame moment in a movie, where everything hangs in the balance and anything can change.
She doesn't know what'll happen and barely thinks about it, but she decides she's got to do something. So she uses their clasped hands to spin herself into Cook, like a dance move, like they were supposed to be doing right now. Her body is tucked up against his, the hand she's trapped across her waist, like an embrace. She wants him to notice.
He's breathing heavy, hard and fast. He hasn't looked away from them, Effy and Freddie. Maybe he can't. His focus is terrifying. He's a predator.
Emily watched a documentary once, late at night, about this guy who had a wife and a boyfriend and kept big cats and put on shows with them, until the white tiger killed them both. Naomi laughed at her when she called her up in tears about it.
Cook's the white tiger, in her mind. She's the wire of the cage. Accidents happen and people get hurt, killed. She can't have this on her conscience.
With her spare hand, the one that isn't white knuckled and hurting from the way she's holding Cook's, she reaches up to put her hand firmly on his chest, then grabs a handful of his shirt, pulling. "Look at me!" She shouts. "Cook! Look at me!"
He blinks, finally. She only sees it because she's watching him so closely, desperate.
She moves her hand to his face, his jaw, his cheek and pushes until he's facing her. She leans up, on tiptoe, her hand slipped down to his shoulder for balance, and kisses him. She isn't timid. She's stopped being scared. This is a passion she can understand, help, control. Sex makes sense. Sex will save them.
Cook's eyes go wide, but he's kissing back. It's messy, passionate, frantic. Emily guides him backwards out of the room without breaking the kiss, without losing contact. She's panting and gasping in his mouth and she doesn't relent until they're in the bathroom and she's reaching back to shut the door behind them.
She slumps back against the door, her eyes sliding closed. She can't catch her breath.
"Emily...?" Cook sounds lost, like a little boy, waking up slowly from a vivid dream. He sounds close.
They're still holding hands. She opens her eyes, stares, fascinated.
"Emily." Cook tries again. "What...?"
"You're bleeding." Her voice is hoarse. "Your hand."
He's wearing a look of confused concern. He glances at his free hand, though he knows that's not what she means. He can't get to his other hand. Emily won't let go.
"Em." He starts. "It's all right, kid. It's okay now. You can let go." He's coaxing but she can't, she can't make herself. Her hand hurts. Her whole arm is starting to hurt, the tension of her grip travelling up to her shoulder and her neck and her head and her vision swims.
And she's crying, gulping, hitching, heaving sobs.
Cook's holding her and shushing her, speaking soothingly in soft tones she didn't know he was capable of. She cries into his chest, buries her face in his shirt, until she can breathe without sobbing. He lets her pull away, sniffling, though she can't get much distance because their hands are still linked.
"I'm sorry." Cook tells her. "You didn't need to do that."
"You w-"
"You shouldn't have had to do that." He interrupts. "I'm sorry I scared you. I love you Emily." He's using his other hand to stroke across her knuckles, which they can both see are white from the tension.
"No one else was doing anything." She mumbles, wiping futilely at the makeup smeared underneath her eyes.
He laughs. "Because they're not idiots. They didn't wanna get hurt. Everyone knows what I'm like." He's gently prying their hands apart, slowly, and leading her over to the sink. He turns both taps on and checks the temperature before he moves their hands under the spray. It stings, even though he's being careful, and Emily hisses a pained breath between her teeth.
"No. You're not... That's not all there is to you Cook. That's not who you have to be."
He watches the blood wash off. It's on both their hands. There are little cuts from each other's nails, half moons in their palms. "I'll walk you home."
Emily leans in to kiss him again. It's chaste, tender, affectionate. He looks surprised.
It was just another moment at just another party, in another room filled with people full of alcohol and drugs. It was just another moment when things turned nasty and people got out of the way or got hurt. But it felt like something else, something more.